The truth is, the conventional wisdom about why we get fat is simply wrong. It’s not about energy balance; it’s not about “overconsumption of calories” or “taking in more calories than we burn.” It’s about something else entirely: how the human body regulates fat metabolism and the accumulation of fat in our adipose tissue. This seems so obvious that it should go without saying—getting fat is a disorder of accumulating too much fat, so of course we should pay attention to how our bodies regulate fat accumulation —but this idea never managed to spread to the clinicians dealing with obesity, obsessed as they were with the notion that their patients were simply eating too much and exercising too little.

If you want an author who fearlessly challenges conventional wisdom, Gary Taubes is your guy. He also has the solution to America’s obesity epidemic, although no one seems to be listening.